Friday, 20 May 2011

I've had an enjoyable few days sharing my corner of East Anglia with Terry Golson who was on a brief visit to England from her home just outside Boston, USA. In two and a half days we visited Ickworth Hall, Wyken Vineyard and the Leaping Hare Restaurant and Country Store, Clare village and the Antiques Centre, Saffron Walden, The Star at Lidgate, Cambridge and Baldock and treated Terry to a proper sit down luncheon and cream tea (you can read more about that here).

Here are some of the highlights . . .

Lunch at the Leaping Hare Restaurant, with the light filtering through a screen of fig leaves outside the windows . . .

The food was very special too – and as bloggers do, we had to take photos (we almost forgot, we were so eager to taste it!) my dessert was the trellis of rhubarb poached in cinnamon syrup served with a hazelnut meringue which had been secretly filled with vanilla cream from underneath – genius!

It was eye-opening to look at familiar places with Terry, she loved the textures and patterns in the vernacular building styles – she's given me lots of ideas!

I'm now back to the old routine – an illustration deadline, the village magazine to publish, the Pick'n'Mix Makers Market in Holt on Saturday 11th June to prepare for and new prints to work on. Oh, and I'm still having to water the garden as we haven't had any proper rain yet (just a brief shower of drizzle).

While we were out about and about doing fun things, Terry received texts from her husband breaking the sad news that her hens were not well, the news got even worse – Lulu, her favourite hen had died. It was so difficult for her to be so far away and not to be able to help her husband cope with the hens and the young chicks in the horrible rain and cold.

Terry has returned home now and I'm sure you'll all join me in sending her and her husband Steve good wishes and hope that their hens pull through and that the sun comes out for all of them in more ways than one!

It was a pleasure to pull you out of your "routine" (nothing routine about your days, Celia!) and have you show me around. I'm still reeling from the color scheme at Wyken, and I just might have to make proper scones for my family! I did come home to a health crisis - mycoplasma - but Steve caught it in time while I was away, an avian vet supplied potent drugs to combat it, and I'm hoping we'll have only the one (albeit heartbreaking) loss. Thanks, again, for such a wonderful visit!

Hello Celia, We met at The Asthma Fair when I stopped to look at your lovely work. Your tour round East Anglia sounded fun; I love it at Wyken Hall, haven't been for ages. I now have a blog as well - I called it inky fingers; my friend Gina got me blogging!

I love reading all the comments (except for spam and advertising which I will delete) and I'll reply here in the comments under each blog post, it may take a few days if I'm busy.You don't need to have a blog to leave a comment, you can select the name/URL option and fill in just your name instead of a blog link.